Coming off their best showing in the division meet in several years, the St. Aloysius Lady Flashes will have a short time to get ready for the Region 4-1A meet today at Mississippi College.

The Lady Flashes finished second in last week’s Division 7-1A meet at Madison Central with 54 points and had a large number of athletes qualify for the region meet. One of them is seventh-grader Maggie Waites, who won the girls pole vault at the division meet.

“I think the sky’s the limit for Maggie. She has gone into Louisiana and Southern Mississippi to get coaching. She’s been over 8 feet at the St. Andrew’s meet and she’s just in the seventh grade,” St. Al coach Mike Jones said.

The Lady Flashes will also be well-represented in the distance events with Anna Haygood, Alana Buckley and Mary Campbell. They will also have a 4×200-meter relay team entered.

Not every team member will be there, however. Schedule conflicts will keep several athletes away from the track.

“When you are 1A, you just have to go with the folks that will put a meet on. Mississippi College wanted it, but it had to be on a Thursday. That kind of hurt us, because we will have some girls out,” Jones said.

On the boys side, Matt Wooten and Josh Williams have a shot to advance to South State. Wooten won the discus at the division meet while Williams was second in the 3,200-meter run.

“It’s an eight-team meet and looking at times, I think we will get some folks to South State,” Jones said.

In addition to hosting the MHSAA regional today, Mississippi College will be the site of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools state meet on Friday.

Porters Chapel’s Reed Gordon won the discus throw and was third in the shot put at last week’s South State meet and will compete in both events in the MAIS Class A meet.

Tallulah Academy will be represented by Allie Kate Gossett in the long jump. She won the event at South State.

Heading to Madison Central on Saturday for the Region 2-6A meet will be teams from Vicksburg and Warren Central.

VHS girls coach Dedra Robinson said both her Missy Gators and the Lady Vikes ran into a strong Greenville-Weston team at the Division 4-6A meet in Greenville last week.

“Greenville had some horses. They had two twins go one-two in both the 3,200 and 1,600 meter runs and that made it tough on Condrea (Collins) from Warren Central. Then they had the Rose girl run 56 seconds to win the 400,” Robinson said.

Vicksburg did have some good performers.

Chantilly Hall qualified for the 100 and 200 meters, Jazmine Washington for the 100 meter hurdles and triple jump, and Alexis Cosby in the 300 hurdles. The Missy Gators also had all three relay teams advance.

The Gators will have Alventray Tarleton in the 100 hurdles, Michael Whitaker in the distance events, Demond Calvin and Rashun Thomas in the sprints and all three relay teams.

Contact Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com